Snap Crackle Pop- Russian River

[GloryDaze]

OK, so this is not an Ozark River- but a trip report on a beautiful river in Northern California called the Russian. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words so I will tell the story with the assistance of some pictures.

After 4 years I finally of my wife to jump in the canoe with me and enjoy the Russian River on our vacation to "Wine Country" I decided to keep it simple (I thought) and not fish and only float 5 miles. We took off on Monday morning from River's Edge Canoe rental in Headlsburg, CA with a loaded cooler and a camera:

As you can see about 1 mile in the river winds through a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains, redwoods boulders and women:

Take a real close look at those rocks in the water.. they play an important part to the rest of this story. You see, I thought it would be a cool idea to step out of the canoe, climb those rocks and have my wife tke a picture of me. As I am standing up with one foot in the canoe and one on the boulder my wife says "bE careful, you are going to hurt yourself. I respond, "honey, I have floated my whole life....................................." next thing I know, I am in the water with my right arm sticking straight up in the air like I am raising my hand in school. Was it because I chose to do that- nope, instead I had slipped bounced off the rock fallen in the water and SEVERELY DISLOCATED MY SHOULDER!!

I managed to somehow at least pull my arm down and swim to shore. My wife took this picture as I was trying (with no luck) to pop it back into place. So here we are- 2,000 miles from home, floating on a Monday with a wife that has never paddled a canoe. It's hard to describe how it felt but not good to say the least. I told her she had to paddle as fast as possible for 4 miles so I could get to the ER. Luckily we came upon some people and they called the rental company, who picked us up and took me to the ER:

Wher they pulled and pulled but could not get it back in socket- 2 hours and counting from the time it happened- finally, they hook me up with an IV and pump me full of pain killers and pulled her back in!!

As soon as the drugs wore off it was off to the wineries to sooth the pain with some bubbly!!!

LESSON TO BE LEARNED HERE; IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET A GOOD PICTURE, GO FOR IT- JUST BE SURE YOUR WIFE DOESN'T JINX YOU FIRST!!!

ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!!!

[smallmouthjoe]

Wow, I'm sorry. From the pics is seems that you took it better than I would have. Beautiful country, sorry you had to hurry through it.